I'm so tired right now, I am eating chocolate chips to keep myself awake enough to write this email.
The biggest news of the week is that it RAINED! A lot! I woke up Friday morning to the sound of rain on the roof. There is no more beautiful sound around these parts. And then yesterday it rained even more! The boys were so excited-- they got on their swimming suits and ran out in the rain and got totally drenched. I wish I could have joined them!
During the first downpour, Joseph and Mosey went right out in their clothes.
(pretending to be mimes trapped behind glass)
After that, I made them change into their swimming suits.
Ben went out to Bastrop yesterday as part of a regional clean-up project (Bastrop is where the worst of the fires was). He came back covered in soot, and totally exhausted. He spent 4 hours with a chainsaw, cutting down burned trees and piling them up to be hauled off. The clean up required out there is overwhelming.
Fireman Ben
I've signed up Brigham for a month of lessons with another violin teacher (his old one is now in Boston). I'm not thrilled about him, truth be told, but I'll give him a month. I emailed several people who advertised on Craigslist, and heard back from 4 of them. One is a very sweet girl who lives pretty close by, but I get the sense that she's not going to push Brigham very hard. I heard back from two other guys-- one seemed great until I checked out the blog and facebook page he linked to. Ummm, a facebook page with bizarre pictures of yourself, and a blog page with new-age-y really bad poetry is not a great way to advertise yourself. Maybe I'm judging too much on appearances. The other guy also seemed OK, but he's very young. I think a college student at UT, and I'd rather have someone with more experience. So I went to this other guy who has a music conservatory about 15 minutes away. He teaches piano, cello, violin, and viola. His main instrument is piano, and then cello. On his resume I couldn't see any performance experience with violin. But, he has lots of years of teaching, and an established studio, so I thought we'd give him a try. I'm underwhelmed. He's this short, odd, 40-something year old man who is not married (and I doubt ever has been), whose mother runs his studio office. None of which make him a bad teacher or human being at all, but I'd prefer a teacher that Brigham can sort of relate to and want to emulate. And he didn't really do any teaching during Brigham's trial lesson-- just heard him play, and then talked to us about signing him up for the London College of Music exam next month. Hmm, writing this I'm wondering why I signed him up for any other lessons. But, I did, so we'll see. He does have an established studio with lots of students, so that's something. Why is this so hard?
What else? I taught music leading at our art class on Thursday. It was rather entertaining to watch 11 pre-teens enthusiastically waving their arms around. They did a good job!
I can't think of any other noteworthy happenings this last week. I've read (listened to) a couple of really interesting books recently, if anyone is needing a book recommendation.
"The Clockwork Universe." Here is Amazon's description:
The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with nature’s most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.
At the end of the seventeenth century—an age of religious wars, plague, and the Great Fire of London— when most people saw the world as falling apart, these earliest scientists saw a world of perfect order. They declared that, chaotic as it looked, the universe was in fact as intricate and perfectly regulated as a clock. This was the tail end of Shakespeare’s century, when the natural and the supernatural still twined around each other. Disease was a punishment ordained by God, astronomy had not yet broken free from astrology, and the sky was filled with omens. It was a time when little was known and everything was new. These brilliant, ambitious, curious men believed in angels, alchemy, and the devil, and they also believed that the universe followed precise, mathematical laws—a contradiction that tormented them and changed the course of history.
The Clockwork Universe is the fascinating and compelling story of the bewildered geniuses of the Royal Society, the men who made the modern world.
And then yesterday I finished "Demon Under the Microscope." Here's the description:
The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
Sulfa saved millions of lives—among them those of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.—but its real effects are even more far reaching. Sulfa changed the way new drugs were developed, approved, and sold; transformed the way doctors treated patients; and ushered in the era of modern medicine. The very concept that chemicals created in a lab could cure disease revolutionized medicine, taking it from the treatment of symptoms and discomfort to the eradication of the root cause of illness.
A strange and colorful story, The Demon Under the Microscope illuminates the vivid characters, corporate strategy, individual idealism, careful planning, lucky breaks, cynicism, heroism, greed, hard work, and the central (though mistaken) idea that brought sulfa to the world. This is a fascinating scientific tale with all the excitement and intrigue of a great suspense novel.
These were really great books! My favorite combination-- interesting, well-written, and teaching me something new. There are so many interesting things to learn in this world, and not enough time to learn even a tiny bit of it. And I also just finished "A History of Us: Volume 1" by Joy Hakim. She has a series of 11 books of American history, aimed at probably the upper elementary/middle school level, but totally interesting and accessible to all ages! It's not dumbed down at all and I learned a lot. The first one goes from pre-history to 1600. So interesting! So well-written! I've decided to add these books on to our history curriculum. She also wrote 3 books on the history of science that I've been working my way through. They are also aimed at kids, but they again, are so engaging and well-written and fascinating, anyone would love them. The 10 volume American History set goes for more than $100 on Amazon, but I think I'm going to make the plunge.
Well, that's it for tonight.
Love,
Gabrielle
No comments:
Post a Comment